Tuesday, November 26, 2013

On September 5, 1791 Robert “Councillor” Carter III – scion of
one of the wealthiest slave-owning families in all of American history – filed his
famous “Deed of Gift” with Virginia’s Northumberland District Court, announcing
his intention to free over 450 of the slaves that toiled at 16 plantations
under his care.

Of the many slave families whose freedom was set in motion
with the Deed of Gift (which would go into effect in stages over many years) was
the Burke family of Leo Plantation (later renamed Oatlands) in Loudoun County. “Baptist Billy” Burke was the “most trusted
emissary” of Robert Carter III and around 1795 his family was emancipated. Burke's family was living at the Bull Run Quarter of Leo
Plantation, which was located in Prince William County near the present day Manassas
battlefield.

Burke’s great-grandson was named Nimrod Burke, who was born in Prince
William County in 1836. While you may not be familiar with the name of Nimrod
Burke, if you have studied African American participation in the American Civil
War you have probably seen his picture before (as a member of the re-created 23rd USCT, Nimrod Burke has become the “poster child” for our living history group).
Burke was one of 54 known African
Americans to fight for the Union cause from Prince William County, but unlike
most of his comrades-in-arms from Prince William, Burke was born a free man –
thanks to the Deed of Gift.

Nimrod Burke, Co. F, 23rd USCT

Burke resided in Prince William until 1854, when he moved to
Ohio with his parents. The 1860 census lists Nimrod as a “mulatto” whose
occupation was simply recorded as “farmer.”

He was 25 years old when the Civil War began and, like many
African American men his age, he tried to enlist and fight for the Union cause.
However, in 1861 the policy of the Lincoln administration was that this was to
be a white man’s war only. With a direct route to military service blocked,
Burke found a roundabout way to join the war effort.

The man that Burke was working for in Ohio prior to the
outbreak of war became an officer in the 36th Ohio. This man knew that
Nimrod had been raised in Virginia and would be familiar with the country that
they would soon be fighting in, so he hired Burke as a teamster and scout for
the regiment before they embarked for Virginia.

Burke continued to serve as an army scout until March of
1864. When the 36th Ohio was garrisoned close to Washington D.C., he enlisted
in the 23rd United States Colored Troops and was appointed 1st Sergeant of
Company F. The 23rd was organized at Camp Casey, which sat near the present day
location of the Pentagon near Robert E. Lee’s beloved Arlington House.

The 23rd was the regiment that sustained the
heaviest losses of any USCT unit at the Battle of the Crater, but fortunately
for Burke, he was in the hospital at the time with what his service record
calls “general debility.”

Burke returned to health and rejoined his until in October
of 1864 and was at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865 when Lee surrendered
the Army of Northern Virginia. This was particularly significant for Burke since
John Carter (a Lee ancestor) had once owned members of the Burke family.

He was mustered out of the service in Brazos, Texas on
November 30, 1865. Burke lived for nearly 50 years after the war and died on
July 15, 1914. He is buried at Greenlawn Cemetery in Chillicothe, Ohio.

In a sense, Nimrod Burke continued to carry the torch of the
man who once owned his forebears – and for that reason, among many others, they
are both worthy of our attention.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

NOTE: This post originally appeared on my WWI blog Over There and has received enough attention to warrant re-posting here for my Civil War readers. It was originally posted on November 25, 2012.When the maelstrom of war swept through Europe during the summer of 1914, many vacationing Americans were caught up the in tide of events and found themselves unwitting witnesses to the opening rounds of the First World War. One such Americans was none other than Mary Custis Lee – the oldest daughter of the famous Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Ms. Lee had been travelling abroad for nearly a decade by the time that war broke out and had resided in France, Germany, Italy, and even Egypt. She happened to find herself in Germany when that country violated Belgian neutrality and the dominoes began to fall, ensuring that what many thought would be a short European war would develop into a global conflict. Wisely deciding that she had better return to the United States, Ms. Lee managed to work her way through Holland to London, where she gave a fascinating interview to the New York Times as she awaited transport to the U.S.﻿

Mary Custis Lee, 1914

The interview took place at Hyde Park Hotel on October 21, 1914. By this point in the early days of the war, the “Miracle of the Marne” had taken place and the race to the race to the sea had just finished. The horrors of large-scale trench warfare that would define the conflict had not begun, yet Ms. Lee speaks of the soldiers suffering in the trenches.From the 22 October 1914 issue of The New York Times:

LONDON, Oct. 21.—Miss Mary Lee, the only surviving daughter of Gen. Robert E. Lee, has just reached London from Hamburg via Rotterdam, and to-day she gave the correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES a striking interview at Hyde Park Hotel, where she will stop until she sails for America.

I am a soldier's daughter," she said, "and descended from a long line of soldiers, but what I have seen of this war, and what I can foresee of the misery which must follow, have made me very nearly a peace-at-any-price woman."

A battalion of Lord Kitchener's new army was marching by directly beneath the room in which Miss Lee was speaking. They started to sing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," and Miss Lee, who had never heard this now imperishable music hall ballad, went to the window and stood for some time silently looking at the column of khaki-clad men below her. When she turned to speak again there were tears in her eyes, and her voice broke.

"My father often used to say," she said, looking straight at a table on which was a picture of Lord Kitchener, autographed by "K. of K." himself no longer ago than last Christmas, "that war was a terrible alternative, and should be the very last. I have remembered those words in the last three months, and I often wonder and wonder with many misgivings if in this case war was the last alternative. As I say, I am a soldier's daughter, and got my first full view of life in the dark days of one of the world's great civil wars, but it has been an altering experience for me to watch, one week in Germany and the next week in England, the handsome, the strong, the brave of both countries marching away to kill or to get killed, perhaps to return no more, perhaps to return maimed and useless men. My father used to say it was not those who were killed in battle—often a quick and always a glorious death for a soldier—but those who, crippled and mangled and enfeebled, faced after the war a world that they could not understand and that had no place for them.

"I think of all of this and ask myself why must it be? What can be worth it? I feel close to the English people, and particularly close to the English Army. I have known many English officers and their wives and daughters. Last Winter, in Egypt, I had the privilege of seeing something of Lord Kitchener, and I have a high admiration for him. But much of what I see in the English press seems hysterical and without reason. The spy mania, for instance, and the senseless calling the Germans Huns and Vandals. I have known many German military men, and I cannot believe that these men are what the English imagination has painted them.

"From the beginning of the war I have been neutral. I have tried to follow President Wilson's advice in word and deed. My sympathy is with suffering wherever it exists—with the brave men who are fighting and suffering in the trenches and the brave women who, in practically all the homes of Europe, are waiting and suffering."

Mary Custis Lee, the last surviving child of Gen. Lee, would live to see the full realization of trench warfare and even lived to see the Armistice. She passed away on November 22, 1918.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

In case you missed it, I had the huge honor of having my
book reviewed in the prestigious Journal of Southern History by Dr. Paul E. Coker
of the University of Tennessee.
Dr. Coker has written extensively on the experiences of US Colored
Troops from Tennessee during and after the Civil War and I couldn't be more
pleased with the review.

Here is the full review:

The Battle of New Market Heights: Freedom Will Be Theirs by the Sword. By James S. Price. (Charleston, S.C., and London: The History Press,
2011. Pp. 125. Paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-60949-038-6.) The focus of James S.
Price's study is a sometimes overlooked episode of the Civil War's
Richmond-Petersburg campaign: the courageous but near-suicidal charge of black
Union soldiers against entrenched Confederates at New Market Heights, Virginia,
on September 29, 1864. The black units involved suffered heavy casualties, but
Union forces ultimately won the position, and fourteen black soldiers were
awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor--a number that "equaled the total
number of Medals of Honor issued to black soldiers in the Spanish-American War,
World War I and World War II combined" (p. 87).

This slim volume offers considerable insight regarding the
black military experience. Some of Price's bolder claims, such as his
suggestion that this was "arguably one of the most important days in
American history," may not convince all readers (p. 9). Instead, perhaps
the book's greatest strength is its exploration of the ambiguity and pliability
of the battle's legacy. While the courage of the U.S. Colored Troops awed many
observers, at least one Confederate soldier who surveyed the battlefield dead
saw only a waste of "about a million dollars worth of niggers, at current
prices" (p. 79). Elsewhere, Price counters arguments, perpetuated in
recent studies, that Confederate defenders voluntarily withdrew and thus were
not driven from their positions or that the Medals of Honor were merely a
product of General Benjamin F. Butler's cynical self-promotion. Finally, an
epilogue analyzing recent battlefield preservation efforts reveals the
resistance of local landowners, one of whom angrily characterized plans for
park expansion as yet another example of Yankee aggression. While some readers
may dread wading into a detailed battle history, this book's clear writing
style, inclusion of dozens of photographs and maps, and relevance to broader
historical themes make it accessible for a general audience and worth
consideration for undergraduate courses. [PAUL E. COKER, University of
Tennessee]

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Well, even though there hasn't been much cooking on this
blog in the past few weeks, things have been percolating behind the scenes and
I have gotten enough public speaking requests to warrant a post! As always, if
you’d like me to come speak at your event, just shoot me an e-mail and I will
see if I can swing it. In the meantime, I’ll count on running into some of you
at the following events:

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Well, a big “thank you” goes out to all of you who took the time out of your busy schedules to attend the commemorative events surrounding the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Bristoe Station. All told, over 1,000 students and visitors participated in this event, which began on the morning of Thursday October 10th and ended at 6 PM on October 14th with the playing of “Taps.”

Fellow bloggers Ron Baumgarten and Craig Swain came out to see some of the events and the park was fortunate to have Dr. James I. “Bud” Robertson, Jr. give the keynote address. For those who may have missed it, here is the full address. Enjoy!

As you know, we only have around 50 days until the 150th
anniversary of the Battle of Bristoe Station, so I will be doing everything
from helping to install an exhibit at the Manassas Museum that opens next
weekend to installing interpretive signs at the battlefield park and getting
the site ready for the large crowds we are expecting.

“There Was a Want of Vigilance” – Battle of Bristoe Station
Exhibit at the Manassas Museum August-October, Manassas Museum ($5 admission)

Exhibit will feature rare artifacts from the Battle of
Bristoe Station. Featured items will
include personal effects of A.P. Hill and other leading participants of the
battle. Exhibit cosponsored by the
Prince William County Historic Preservation Division and the Manassas Museum. Contact
Manassas Museum for more information at 703-368-1873

Bristoe Station Campaign Bus Tour Saturday, October 5, 2013

$85 per person, includes lunch. Reservations required, space is limited

Enjoy a full day with an in-depth tour of the sites and
battlefields that made up the Bristoe Campaign.
Stops will include: Bristoe
Station Battlefield Heritage Park, Auburn, Remington and Buckland. Historians will explain how this important
campaign impacted soldiers, civilians and its overall impact on the outcome of
the Civil War. Participants will have a
chance to see little known or visited sites.
Contact Bristoe Station Battlefield Heritage Park at 703-366-3049 for
more information and reservations.

Battle of Bristoe Station 150th Commemorative Weekend

Saturday – Sunday, October 12-13, 2013

Free, donations encouraged

To commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of
Bristoe Station, tours, musical performances, lectures, tours and living history
demonstrations and encampments to represent the soldiers and units present at
the battle in 1863. Weekend kicks off on Saturday at 10am with a dedication
ceremony featuring keynote speaker Dr. James I. Robertson Jr. The Virginia
History Mobile will be available on Saturday and a Youth Activity Tent will
also be available all weekend.

Schedule:

Saturday, October 12, 2013

10 a.m. – Opening Program and Trail Dedication

Introductions, The Honorable W.S. Wally Covington III Brentsville
District Supervisor, Prince William County

Battlefield Tours ongoing on the hour from the program tent
(11am-3pm). Living history demonstrations
on going in camp areas.

150th Anniversary of the Battle of Bristoe Station

Monday, October 14, 2013

Walking Tours Free, Car Caravan and Bus Tours have separate
fee

Join Bristoe Station
Battlefield Heritage Park staff on the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of
Bristoe Station for exclusive tours of the battlefield. Tours will take place “in time” of the events
in 1863, including Prelude to Battle Walking Tour, In the Footsteps of North
Carolina walk tour and a Musical Tribute to the fallen at Bristoe Station. Events are as scheduled:

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Today I came across an essay that deals with a question that
has plagued Civil War battlefields and museums for decades – how do you attract
African Americans to your sites and events?

Having been in the field of public history since 1998, I
have heard frustration over a lack of African American participation and enthusiasm
voiced over and over again…and no matter how hard sites try to bend over backwards
to attract and accommodate a black audience, results never seem to match
expectation.

“First, this wasn’t our war. Many African-Americans fought
and died on both sides of the conflict, but they were excluded from the
decision-making process.”

She went on to pose an astonishing question with an even
more problematic answer: “But the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery,
right? Maybe.”

I would posit that these two quotes from her larger
explanation of why African Americans are unconcerned with the Civil War actually
raise more questions than they answer.

For instance:

- Is she giving credence to the Black Confederate myth when
she declares that blacks “fought and died on both sides of the conflict”?

- What body of evidence is there that would imply that the
Civil War didn't really abolish slavery?

McPherson begins her essay by stating “most
African-Americans regard the Civil War with relative indifference.”

This leads to the issue I allude to in the title of this
post – is there any wonder that blacks would be indifferent when the war is
framed within this negative and pessimistic context?

The implication is that there is nothing that blacks can
take away from the Civil War experience that they can be proud of – it was all
too horrible, so why go back and retread such awful and painful ground?

McPherson obviously brings an entirely different set of experiences
to her observations and that is fine – I just can’t help but feel different
based on my experiences speaking to African American groups and attending
living history events with the 23rd United States Colored Troops.

In my experience, the question I hear repeated over and over
again within these communities is – why didn’t anybody tell me about this?

At a recent event with the 23rd, I had the pleasure
of talking to an African American couple who had driven many miles just to see
and talk to the members of the 23rd because they had no idea what
USCTs were or how large their participation in the war actually was. They were completely intrigued.

When I was done talking to them, they were literally giddy
with what they had just learned and couldn’t wait to go home, buy some books,
and learn even more. And this was not an isolated incident. Many African Americans I have spoken to feel a sense of loss that they have gone their whole lives without hearing about black participation in the Civil War.

Sadly, McPherson’s perspective would seem to leave little
room for such edification.

During my ongoing research for my forthcoming book on the battle,
I sent out a request for help to several colleagues trying to find out more
information about Pvt. O’Connor.

O’Connor won the Medal of Honor “for extraordinary heroism on 28
July 1864, while serving with Company E, 1st U.S. Cavalry, in action at
Malvern, Virginia, for capture of flag of the 18th North Carolina Infantry
(Confederate States of America).”

Below is a picture of the actual flag captured by O’Connor which
was returned to the state of North Carolina in 1905.

NC Dept. of Cultural
Resources

The task of finding out basic information on this individual was
quite an ordeal.

Think of it:

- The most basic details of his life were sketchy and sometimes
contradictory (some sources have him listed as being buried in Arlington, others
say he's buried in Kansas)

- He was an Irish immigrant

- He had no middle name and a last name that is extremely common

- Some sources refer to him as “Timothy Connors” or “Timothy Conners”

- He fought in a unit that is difficult to get detailed information
on

After weeks of fruitless searching, Craig Swain kindly put me in
touch with Don, who is the leading expert on all things pertaining to the
regular U.S. cavalry during the Civil War.

As you can see, Don applied his expertise to the problem and came
up with a much clearer picture of who Timothy O’Connor was.

In so doing, he has
rescued a courageous young recipient of our nation’s highest honor from
obscurity, for which we owe him a debt of gratitude.

O'Connor's Memorial Headstone in Arlington National Cemetery with incorrect death date.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Today marks the 149th anniversary of the conclusion of
the inglorious sortie that has come down to history as the campaign and battle
of First Deep Bottom.

The First Battle of Deep Bottom – also on occasion referred to as
the Battle of Darbytown, Strawberry Plains, Tilghman’s Gate, New Market Road ,Gravel
Hill, and even Malvern Hill (the latter
causing a great deal of confusion) – has been relegated to the status of a
historical footnote. One would think that an expedition to threaten the
Confederate capital led by such Union luminaries as Winfield Scott Hancock and
Philip H. Sheridan would have garnered a substantial amount of attention by
Civil War scholars, but this has not been the case.

First Deep Bottom was part of Grant’s Third Offensive of the
Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, which culminated in the horrific Battle of the
Crater. In addition to the more famous mine assault, Grant also planned to send
an expedition to the north side of the James River. Hancock’s II Corps, along
with two divisions of Sheridan’s cavalry and one division of Kautz’s Army of
the James cavalry would cross the James River at Deep Bottom and threaten
Richmond.

Union Pontoon Bridge at Deep Bottom

The cavalry was to ride hard and fast to destroy the Virginia
Central Railroad as far as the North Anna River. The blue cavaliers were then
to ride down to Richmond and attempt to carry the city in a joint effort with
the II Corps. If the raid was successful in destroying the railroad and taking
Richmond, Grant intended to call off the mine attack.

Over the night of July 26-27, the II Corps crossed the James on a
pontoon bridge at Deep Bottom and advanced east of the bridgehead there into an
area called Strawberry Plains. The expedition started well on the 27th, with Union
forces capturing four 20 pounder Parrott rifles of Graham’s Virginia Battery
and forcing the Confederates to pull back to the New Market Line.

The Capture of Graham's Battery

Unfortunately, this brief success is what caused the rest of the campaign
to unravel. The new line occupied by the Confederates was too strong to attack
head on and, in Hancock’s mind at least, there were not enough men to flank the
position. Hancock decided to pull the plug on Sheridan’s raid and kept his horsemen
with the main infantry column. In a revealing note to Grant, Hancock said he
wanted to be as “cautious as possible
to avoid any bad luck” – a clear indication that the devastating casualties inflicted
upon the II Corps since the start of the Overland Campaign were preeminent in
Hancock’s decision-making.

While Hancock gave up the initiative (and thus any real chance of obtaining
any of Grant’s offensive goals) his mere presence was enough to worry Lee into
sending Richard H. Anderson with four divisions (2 infantry, 2 cavalry) north
of the James.

The next day, these Confederate reinforcements plowed into Sheridan’s
horsemen at 10:00 a.m. After a fierce clash near the Enroughty Farm (recently preserved
by the Richmond Battlefields Association and the Civil War Trust), the rebels
were driven back. In this fight, Pvt. Timothy O’Connor of Co. E, 1st
U.S. Cavalry was awarded the Medal of Honor for capturing the regimental colors
of the 18th North Carolina Infantry. Although the Yankee soldiers had
prevailed, Hancock was undeterred from maintaining his defensive posture.

By the morning of July 29th Hancock had already sent
one division back to Petersburg and decided to hunker down and use the rest of
his force as bait in the hopes that Lee would shuffle even more troops north of
the James. In this, he was successful. Edward Porter Alexander noted that
“nearly six Confederate divisions” had been shifted to the north side of the
James by the time the mine exploded, affording the IX Corps a real chance to
achieve a decisive breakthrough. Hancock’s men had abandoned their positions
near Deep Bottom and were already in front of Petersburg by the morning of July
30th, when the explosion was triggered.

The ensuing Battle of the Crater ensured that First Deep Bottom
would languish in relative obscurity for many years. However, in recent
decades, renowned historian and researcher Bryce A. Suderow has been compiling
a massive amount of data on the battle, some of which was published in his 1997
article “Glory Denied: The First Battle of Deep Bottom July 27th - 29th
1864” which remains the standard account of the battle after 16 years.

In addition to the great work already done by Suderow, I am in the process of writing The First Battle of Deep
Bottom: Grant vs. Lee North of the James, 1864 which will be released by
The History Press just in time for the 150th anniversary of the
battle.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Well, it’s a day ending in “y” and that must mean that
someone somewhere is lambasting Ron Maxwell’s new film “Copperhead.”

If you’ve been following the reviews at all, you will know
that they have been almost universally negative.

Megan Kate Nelson decried the film for not
entertaining her. Some
person named Justin Chang, who apparently suffers from an over fondness for
prepositions, called it, “A stodgy, drearily long-winded attempt to to shed
light on a little-known chapter of the Civil War.” The New York Times said, “Though the tale, based on a novel by Harold Frederic,
remains relevant to our time, the film is too self-conscious and tedious for
the message it delivers.”

While the Times lauds the message of "Copperhead", the last
few days have seen an argument over just what that message truly is.

On July 22nd, journalist and Clinton confidante Sidney
Blumenthal wrote a piece for The Atlantic called “Romanticizing the Villains of
the Civil War.” Blumenthal claims that “The newly released film… is in the same
tradition as Gone with the Wind and Gods and Generals. Its history is highly
revisionist.” He sees the film as a Neo-Confederate extravaganza, meant to pay homage
to the lost cause.

The piece concludes:

In the year of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation
Proclamation, Copperhead presents us with a false depiction of the Copperheads
as principled men of peace instead of what they were -- often violent and
always racist defenders of slavery, secession, and the Confederacy. Copperhead
is propaganda for an old variation of the neo-Confederate Lost Cause myth, that
the root of the Civil War was not slavery and the slave power, but an
aggressive, power-mad North seeking to tyrannize, by unconstitutional means, a
benign and chivalrous South. The Lost Cause myth was at its heart not a matter
of a differing interpretation, but of the falsification and suppression of
history in order to vindicate the Confederacy and later to justify Jim Crow.
Frankly, my dear, we should give a damn.

Two days later Bill Kauffman, who wrote the screenplay,
responded in The American Conservative, claiming “Sidney Blumenthal
misunderstands a film about peace, community, and the limits of dissent—not the
Union or Confederate causes.”

Far from being a paean to the Southern cause, Kauffman claims
“The movie is about the effect of war on a community. It is about the way that
wars tear families apart. It is about the challenge of loving one’s neighbor.
And it is about dissent, which is never exactly in robust condition in the land
of the free.”

Kauffman denies allegiance to the ideology of either the
North or the South, asserting that “’Copperhead’ does not end with an
affirmation of the Union, as convention would dictate. Nor does it end with an
affirmation of disunion, as would a pro-Confederate film.”

While I have not seen the film and therefore cannot comment
on the validity of any of the abovementioned viewpoints, I do find it
interesting that the latest tussle over the film has a political bent to it.
With the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan still looming over the
American psyche, who would have predicted that an “anti-war” film would be criticized
on the left and applauded on the right?

Monday, July 22, 2013

As many of you know, something that has filled me with immense
pride over the last two years has been my small role in the formation of and participation
with the recreated 23rd Regiment United States Colored Troops.

While family tragedy and health issues have kept me from
attending as many events as I would have liked over the last 14 months, I was
very glad to hear from the units president, Steward Henderson, that a state highway
marker has been approved to mark the site of the actual 23rd’s baptism
of fire at the Alrich Farm in Spotsylvania County.

Map courtesy of FSNMP

As you can see from the map, this was the very first time during the Civil War that black
troops had fired on Robert E. Lee’s vaunted Army of Northern Virginia north of
the James River.

This marker is important not only for the event that it
memorializes, but also the momentous symbolism of that event.

The 23rd U.S. Colored Troops had many men in the ranks who
had been held as chattel in Spotsylvania, Stafford, and the surrounding
counties – their entrance into combat here saw them return to the site of their
former degradation not as property, but as free men willingly taking up arms to
liberate their enslaved brethren.

Photo by John C. Cummings III

Those who worked hard to have this marker placed – people like
John Hennessy of the National Park Service and John Cummings and Steward
Henderson of the 23rd USCT – have done an incalculable service to
future generations who will come to Spotsylvania seeking to better understand
America’s Civil War.

The marker will be unveiled during the 150th
anniversary commemoration that will take place at the actual site of the
fighting on May 17, 2014. The 23rd USCT, along with other living
history units, will recreate the march of the 23rd from the Chancellorsville
ruins to the intersection of Catharpin and Orange Plank Road. This is shaping
up to be a very special event, and I will post updates as the event planning continues.

Friday, July 12, 2013

“For the Army of the
Potomac and its commander George G. Meade, the canceled assault at Mine Run was
probably the most important nonevent in the army’s history as well as something
of a turning point.” – John Hennessy, 1997

This past Monday, Craig Swain listed
some of the exciting events that will be taking place this fall in anticipation
of the 150th anniversary of the Bristoe Campaign (see here).

While it is great to see such attention being paid to an
often overlooked episode in the eastern theater, I was surprised to see that
there are no events in the offing for the anniversary of the Mine Run Campaign,
which lasted from November 26 – December 2, 1863.

I find this surprising, because Mine Run has much to offer
in terms not only of counterfactuals and tactical interest, but also its hyper-political
context (both for the US and the Confederacy).

In mid-November of 1863, Gen. Meade, under pressure from
Washington, crossed the Rapidan in an attempt to outflank the Army of Northern
Virginia. The opportunities were great – several crucial fords across the
Rapidan were unguarded and Longstreet’s Corps was off in Tennessee. Speed was
crucial to Meade’s plan, and when the army got off to a slow start, problems
began to compound for the Army of the Potomac. French’s III Corps took far too
long crossing the river, and Lee soon caught wind of the offensive and started
shuffling troops from Orange Court House to stymie Meade.

It worked.

Following the Battle of Payne’s Farm (680 acres of which has
been preserved by the Civil War Trust), which included what one Confederate
described as “as warm a musketry fire as I have experienced for a good while –
certainly worse than I have been in since Sharpsburg,” Lee pulled his men back
to a carefully selected position on the west side of Mine Run where they immediately
began digging in.

Meade followed Lee to Mine Run but would advance no further.
After issuing orders for an attack that some Confederates were eagerly hoping
would develop into a “Second Chancellorsville,” Meade examined the strong
Confederate position and called off the attack. As he told his wife, “I would
rather be ignominiously dismissed, and suffer anything, than knowingly and
willfully have thousands of brave men slaughtered for nothing.” He pulled his
men back across the Rapidan on December 2nd and reaped a whirlwind
of political discontent in Washington. To his men, however, he won admiration
and respect for not wantonly throwing away their lives.

Lt. Michael S. Austin of the 5th New Jersey wrote:

Much
censure is cast upon Gen Mead [sic] for the apparent failure of the late
campaign. Those who were more closely connected & interested in that
affair, are satisfied that it terminated as it should have done, after they saw
what they had first to overcome…Today there are 15,000 men living, & of
service, if properly used. In the case contemplated, that number of men would
have been lost to the enemy & country, with a great chance of defeat.

For
Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, the Army of the Potomac had
been allowed to slip away with no further damage yet again. Lee grumpily said
after the campaign, “I am too old to command this army. We should never have permitted those people
to get away.”

Thus, the 150th anniversary of the Mine Run Campaign
offers a chance to take a fresh look at this forgotten affair…it just looks as
if no one has taken an interest in conducting that look.

While it may not grab the attention of the masses since we
know that a large scale battle did not develop, the men who lived through the campaign
did not enjoy this hindsight.

If anyone is aware of any upcoming events that deal with
this fascinating period, please post them in the comments section.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Over at Civil War Memory, Kevin Levin has been struggling
with the thought of re-enacting past events (or, in this case, lynchings) that
have an overt theme of racial atrocity. This has sprung up, in part, due to the
recent uproar over Peter Carmichael’s comments about re-enactors and
re-enacting (for more on that, see here).

While I can’t speak to the appropriateness of such an event,
I can say that there will definitely be re-enactors at the 150th
anniversary commemoration of the battle, no matter what form it takes. I
portray a white officer with the newly reconstituted 23rd United States Colored Troops – the unit that sustained the highest losses of any USCT
regiment at the Crater – and we will be there to educate the public about this
important battle along with several other re-enactment units.

While I see the obvious value in having this dialogue, what
I find confusing about it is that it assumes that there are currently no
re-enactments of battles in which racial atrocities occurred.

There are.

Fort Pocahontas, near Charles City, VA, has hosted an annual re-enactment since the late 1990’s. This was the site of the Battle of Wilson’s Wharf, where Fitzhugh Lee’s Confederate cavalrymen were humiliated and defeated
by two brigades of USCTs under Gen. Edward Wild. We know that several USCTs who
were captured before the attack were executed and a trooper in the 2nd
VA Cavalry noted "We had orders to kill every man in the fort if we had taken
them." The Confederates failed, and a larger massacre on par with Fort
Pillow was thankfully averted.

Courtesy of fortpocahontas.org

This is obviously not the same scale as what transpired at
the Crater, but the element of atrocity is still very much there.

Nevertheless, every May, re-enactors from all over the
country descend upon the site of the fort. I have many friends who attend this
event and I have heard nothing but the highest praise. The people who host the
event are currently in the planning stages of the 150th anniversary
re-enactment that will take place next May.

Anyone who has read my book knows that there were many USCTs
killed after they had either been wounded or had laid down their arms. The
slaughter was so great that one member of the Texas brigade bragged in his
diary, “we killed in our front about a million dollars worth of niggers, at
current prices.”

How Henrico County plans on handling this visceral racial
element will be interesting to see play out.

I guess the crucial difference is the fact that both Wilson’s
Wharf and New Market Heights were victories for the U.S. Colored Troops.

Would the public stomach a depiction of these racially
charged battles only if the end result was victory for the African American
soldiers?

Sunday, July 7, 2013

On June 29, the Wall Street Journal ran a story that said, "Peter Carmichael, a professor of history at Gettysburg College, calls
re-enactments an 'unfortunate distraction' from a deeper understanding of the
Civil War, including the motivations of those who fought and its legacy."

The author of the piece, Donald Gilliland, surveys the rift that exists between academic historians and Civil War re-enactors.
Gilliland says, “Like any good American feud, it includes perceived differences
in class, propriety, work ethic and honor. The professional historians are
clearly the establishment, and the re-enactors the literally unwashed masses.”

In order to prepare for his story, Gilliland apparently spent
an entire year participating in Civil War re-enactments so that he could “embed”
himself in the camps during the recent battle re-enactment in Gettysburg.

When he told Dr. Carmichael of this studious preparation, Gilliland
alleges that “his question to me - didn't I find most of the re-enactors to be
blue collar? - suggested other factors were at play.”

The reader is left with the feeling that Carmichael is
another ivory tower schmuck, sneering down his nose at all of the stupid little
people who could never hope to be as knowledgeable about the Civil War as he
is.

The rest of the article attempts to paint a contrast with
Carmichael by telling the story of a man who has been a re-enactor for over 30
years. After summarizing the re-enactor experience, Gilliland ends his article
with the observation that “that kind of participatory history simply can't be
found with a licensed guide on the battlefield.”

And there you have it: the cold and abstract observations of
an aloof academic versus the folksy wisdom of a simple man who wants to honor
Civil War soldiers. It’s a dead horse that gets dragged out and pummeled from
time to time, and like most of these “controversies” there certainly is a germ of truth to it.

I’m sure that this is not the last we will see of it.

However, the tragic thing about this story is that it stokes
discord and division and, according to Peter Carmichael himself, isn’t even an
accurate reflection of what he said in the first place.

Here is his full comment regarding the article:

How Mr. Gillland framed this piece was intended to stir
controversy and to set up battle lines between academic historians and those
who do living history. I was naive and downright foolish to expect a fair and
balanced assessment of this issue. First, we discussed the socio-economic
background of Civil War re-enactors in attempt to understand the many reasons
why people are drawn to this hobby. The idea that I am an elitist on this front
is curious to me since my father was a ditch digger for Citizens Gas his entire
life. I deeply resent how Mr. Gilland depicted that part of our discussion.
Second, I made clear that I have great respect for living history
demonstrations and find tremendous value in how they engage the public. This
critical point destroys any allegation that I believe that only the educated
elite own the past. Third, my issue is with mock battles and I believe it leads
to the mystification of war for all involved. I don't think war should become a
spectator sport. This is a reasonable objection that deserves consideration and
civil conversation. It is far from an elitist perspective. Mr. Gilland with his
crude generalizations and sloppy writing made sure that no such discussion
would take place. Fourth, I stopped doing reenactments for many reasons that
are deeply personal and involve my father who struggled with his combat
experiences in Korea, but I still maintain close relationships with my
reenactor friends from my youth. I just took the 4th Virginia Infantry from
Indianapolis around the battlefield last week. As much as Mr. Gilland want to
create a divide to sell papers and to stir artificial outrage, the hard fact is
that I have and continue to believe in the value of living history. My
objections to mock battles in no way creates a cultural war that Mr. Gilland
has imagined.

As you can see, this is a very different perspective from
what Gilliland offered his readers.

In my opinion, Gilliland had a simmering resentment about a
perceived prejudice that academic historians harbored towards Civil War
re-enactors.

He picked his target – in this case, Carmichael – looked for
a quote to misconstrue, and cranked out his article.

If he was hoping to stir the pot and gather a few thousand
hits for his blog, he has succeeded.

One just wishes he would be more careful when someone’s
reputation is on the line…

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

What if I were to tell you that much of the way that we have
come to remember Gettysburg was shaped not by the men who fought there, but by
an artist who never even saw the battle?

John Bachelder & Wife, 1890.

It may sound strange, but it’s true.

John Badger Bachelder – a portrait and landscape painter
from New Hampshire – not only had a significant impact on the way we understand
the battle proper, he also had a profound impact on the way that the
battlefield itself was preserved and interpreted. And for those who express
annoyance at Gettysburg being “the world’s largest collection of outdoor
sculpture,” John Bachelder shoulders a large portion of the blame, since he
served as Superintendent of Tablets and Legends for the Gettysburg Battlefield
Memorial Association from 1883-1887.

Bachelder’s Civil War journey began when he made a covenant
with himself to, as he put it, “wait for the great battle which would naturally
decide the contest; study it’s topography on the field and learn its details
from the actors themselves, and eventually prepare its written and illustrated history.”
His opportunity came when he learned of the contest at Gettysburg, and he
arrived on the field just days after it had concluded.

After speaking with wounded soldiers, jotting down some notes,
and making sketches of the terrain, Bachelder caught up with the Army of the
Potomac in Virginia and received permission form Gen. Meade to interview the
survivors of the battle over the winter of 1863-1864.

Bachelder would describe his activities over two decades
later:

I spent the entire winter…visiting every Regiment, holding
conversations with its officers and with privates in many cases, submitted to
them the drawings I had made of the Field and had them corroborate and complete
the position of the troops upon it.

In 1865 he published his “Gettysburg Battle-field: Battle
fought at Gettysburg, Pa., July 1st, 2d & 3d, 1863 by the Federal and
Confederate armies, commanded respectively by Genl. G. G. Meade and Genl.
Robert E. Lee,” which became a great success.

Bachelder's 1865 Map.

Crowning himself the “official historian” of the Battle of
Gettysburg, Bachelder’s obsession with the battle grew after the war when he
collected as many firsthand accounts from the participants of the battle as
possible. He even used his influence to bring the surviving veterans back to
Gettysburg to walk the battlefield with him and give their explanations of the
ebb and flow of the battle.

While the veterans may not have realized it, their
understanding of the battle was actually molded by these tours: Bachelder would
lead the groups around, explain what happened on that particular part of the
field, and then have the veterans tell him how their individual stories fit
into his overarching narrative. Thus, many old soldiers were hoodwinked into believing
that Bachelder’s knowledge of the battle was greater than their own.

Bachelder commissioned artist James Walker to paint “The
Repulse of Longstreet’s Assault at the Battle of Gettysburg,” in 1870 and wrote
the text that accompanied the print. Ten years later, Congress authorized the gargantuan
sum of $50,000 to be paid to Bachelder to produce the official government
history of the battle. Thomas Desjardin, who devoted a chapter to Bachelder in
his 2003 book These Honored Dead: How the
Story of Gettysburg Shaped American Memory, wrote of the downside of having
Bachelder as the official historian:

Without any formal training or experience, the painter
sought to sort through the problems inherent in dealing with imperfect human
memory and then tried to combine an enormous collection of often conflicting
accounts into a single history.

By this time, however, Bachelder was so convinced of his own
expertise that he began to flex his intellectual muscle to the point where
people became irritated at his impudence. In 1885, Winfield Scott Hancock had
to write Bachelder and tell him that he got the location of Hancock’s wounding
during Pickett’s Charge wrong – even though Bachelder and Hancock had visited
the spot together three years after the battle. Bachelder thought his knowledge
of the affair trumped Hancock’s, which drew the ire of a man who was not to be
trifled with.

Another dejected veteran who was displeased with Bachelder’s
work griped that he was a “loud-mouthed, blatant photographer, artist at
Sickles’s headquarters and henchman of Sickles, [who] made people buy an
avalanche of propaganda that Sickles held back Longstreet, and all writers
began to believe it and praised Sickles’s act.”

When Bachelder
completed his 8-volume history of the battle there was an outcry not only from
the veterans, but also from some of the government officials who felt they didn't
get their money’s worth. Southerners especially felt jilted, since the coverage of
battle was skewed disproportionately with Union accounts (one reason for this
being that Bachelder was not given access to the Army of Northern Virginia during
the winter of 1863 – 1864.) The War Department paid Bachelder the full $50,000,
but his manuscript went unpublished. Bachelder would continue to play an
important role in the expansion of the Gettysburg battlefield until his death
in 1894.

Nonetheless, Gettysburg is still quite literally marked with
Bachelder’s influence. He viewed Pickett’s Charge as the seminal point of the entire
war, and introduced the term “High Water Mark of the Confederacy” into the
Gettysburg lexicon. He even designed the High Water Mark monument on Cemetery
Ridge. Similarly, anyone who has seen the motion picture Gettysburg will most likely remember Tom
Berenger pointing to the “copse of trees” that was to be the focal point of Pickett’s
attack. “Copse” is an artistic term used by landscape artists such as Bachelder
(which explains why other Civil War battlefields are “copse” free.)

Thus, it really is difficult to play down the influence that
John B. Bachelder has had upon the way we understand and compartmentalize the
Battle of Gettysburg. Something tells me that, at this very moment, his soul is
marching on as the commemoration surrounding the battle’s most important day –
July 2, 1863 – continues.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Well, we can’t even get to the anniversary of the first shot
that opened the Battle of Gettysburg before a controversy has already swept
through the blogosphere and Civil War history community.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of
Abraham Lincoln (the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln) gave a keynote address last
evening to kick off the commemoration of the Battle of Gettysburg and,
according to most accounts, regaled the crowd with touching tales of how she
met her husband and all the fun she used to have working for LBJ.

Conspicuously absent? The Battle of Gettysburg and the men
who fought it.

What listeners did get was a long-winded excursion into
everything from women’s rights to the modern gay rights movement, interspersed with more wistful and self-promoting stories driving home the
point that she’s pretty much one of the coolest people ever.

The hullabaloo began before her speech had even ended and
here is a sampling of what folks are saying:

Tony Lee:
“As a historian chosen for the honor of keynoting the opening ceremonies
for the solemn--and special--anniversary of the most important and famous
battle fought in the Western Hemisphere, Kearns Goodwin had a duty to take up
the task of Oliver Wendell Holmes and "bear the report to those who come after." Instead, she
slapped the faces of those in attendance by mistaking the occasion for an
alumni weekend speech or a Georgetown cocktail party.” Kevin Levin: “At what point are we simply using the past to buttress our own personal
political/ethical convictions rather than trying to frame it for the benefit of
the nation as a whole or just the community that attended last night’s
ceremony?”Dmitri Rotov: “In terms of fee structure, DKG is now classed with "motivational
speakers." At Gettysburg, you wonder whom she was motivating.”One
recurring theme in some of the angst-ridden comments was Goodwin's well-known plagiarism scandal (for the fullest treatment of this epic
scandal and others like it, see Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud - American History from Bancroft and Parkmanto Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin by Peter Charles Hoffer.) I'd say that this is fair game, and why people still turn to her as a reliable source for understanding the American past is beyond me.Mrs.
Goodwin committed acts that would get any graduate student kicked out of their
program and would get any run-of-the mill historian blacklisted for life. But, instead of being drummed out of camp, Goodwin has gone virtually consequence
free and can still charge “$40,001 & up” for her speaking engagements...perhaps in an effort to recoup the money she lost when she paid off the people she plagiarized from.

Compare this to the case of Dr. Thomas P. Lowry and the
pursuant rush to judgment with the Lincoln document that he allegedly altered,
and you will see the chasm that differentiates the “cool kids” like
Goodwin from the unwashed masses.
(NOTE: I am not commenting on the guilt or innocence of Dr. Lowry, just using
his case as an example – nothing less, nothing more.)

All of this is to say that, with Goodwin, you know what
you’re getting. She is what she is, and I’m OK with that (I thought Team of Rivals was a great book and, so
far at least, it looks like it’s actually her
work.) If the good folks up in Gettysburg truly thought that she was going to
launch into an eloquent tribute to the men who fought and died at Gettysburg
without taking some hard-to-follow detours, then the fault lies with them.

If you’re looking for someone to blame, how about the folks
who chose her to speak in the first place?

Welcome to Freedom by the Sword: A Historian’s Journey
through the American Civil War Era!

I have been contemplating this change for a few months now,
and the time has come for me to venture forth into the new course I've charted.
I mean, what better time could there be than during the 150th Anniversary of
the Gettysburg Campaign, right? That being said, let me anticipate some of the
questions that will inevitably arise from this shift and try to answer them.

So why the sudden change?

Well, while blogging about the service of U. S. Colored
Troops has been a rewarding experience, my interest in the American Civil War
goes far beyond this one subject. A blog solely dedicated to USCTs has its
limits, and whenever I would intrude upon that subject matter with posts
similar to the one I wrote on Chancellorsville a few weeks back, I would feel a
nagging sense of impropriety about writing something that wasn't technically
within the purview of the blog.

So I've decided to expand the horizons of the blog, not to
neglect or turn away from the history of USCTs, but to provide a more spacious
playing field in which to interact with Civil War history.

What’s with the name?

The name derives from the Butler Medal, which was issued to
the United States Colored Troops who participated in the Battle of Chaffin’s
Farm, September 29-30, 1864. On one side of the medal was the Latin inscription
Ferro iis libertas perveniet, which means “Freedom will be theirs by the Sword”
(also the subtitle of my 2011 book on the Battle of New Market Heights.)

While paying homage to the original meaning behind the
phrase, I also recognize that the word “freedom” had very different meanings,
depending on which side you were fighting for.

What can we expect from here on out?

While I still plan to devote much of my attention to US
Colored Troops, I now plan on offering posts on topics that I am currently
working on or other things which have piqued my interest, such as:

Some general reflections on Robert E. Lee (having recently
finished a one year tour at Arlington House: The Robert E. Lee Memorial, I've
already got some posts in mind)

Pretty much anything regarding the Confederacy or the
Confederate army (pretty hard to blog about when your focus is USCTs!)

Various and sundry battles and battlefields that are close
by (at least for me) but I've never really explored in writing before, such as (in no particular
order): Bristoe Station, the Wilderness, Mine Run, Fredericksburg,
Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania Courthouse, North Anna, Antietam, and even…dare
I say it?...Gettysburg!

While some of you are undoubtedly doing a facepalm right
about now (especially at the mention of the G- word) I am certain that this new
path will lead to more frequent posts and a chance to engage with a larger
audience.

So sit back, relax, and get ready for a whole new blogging
experience!

“Jimmy's book is excellent and highly recommended! …The honor was mine in being able to work with this fine author.” - Don Troiani, Historical Artist

“Thanks to Mr. Price’s diligent research, students of the war finally have a volume that details one of the most important, if not the most important, moments in United States African American military history.” - Jim Lighthizer, President, Civil War Trust

Buy a Copy of My Book!

Disclaimer

The views expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not reflect those of any group, organization, or institution.

About Me

Jimmy Price is a Museum Education Specialist with the US Army Women's Museum. An Air Force veteran, he received his M.A. in Military History from Norwich University in 2009. His first book, The Battle of NewMarket Heights: Freedom Will Be Theirs by the Sword, was published in 2011. The Journal of Southern History claims “this slim volume offers considerable insight regarding the black military experience.” His second book, The Battle of First Deep Bottom was released to critical acclaim in 2014. Jimmy writes about different aspects of military history on his blogs Freedom by the Sword: A Historian’s Journey through the American Civil War Era andOver There: Blogging the AEF and WWI. He has contributed essays to A Companion to the Meuse-Argonne Campaign (edited by Edward G. Lengel), Hallowed Groundmagazine, and the International Encyclopedia of the First World War. He lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia with his wife and three children.